Watch This With Rick Ramos

On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos Ibrahim & I sit down in The Fortress of Ultimate Darkness to discuss screenwriter Taylor Sheridan. Coming out of an incredibly prolific writing period, Sheridan has exploded onto the scene writing three of the best films of the last five years. Sicario (2015 - Director Denis Villeneuve), Hell or High Water (2016 - Director David Mackenzie), and - fin...

On this week's episode of WatchThis W/Rick Ramos I'm flying solo in The Fortress of Ultimate Darkness. A quick look back at the life and work of Military Vet and Unexpected Movie Star who passed away on May 15th from complications of Pneumonia. Of course you can't talk Ermey without discussing Stanley Kubrick's Vietnam War Classic, Full Metal Jacket (1987), but I also take a look at Tim Robbin's D...

On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos we take a minute to get personal and talk about The Art of Cinema. Sit back and take a listen as I ask Mr. Chavez a series of questions designed to get to the core of his beliefs and opinions regarding Cinema. Take a listen and let us know what you think. As always, thank you for the continued love and support.  Questions, Comments, Problems, and Sug...

On this week's episode of WatchThis w/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I, once again, sit down in The Fortress of Ultimate Darkness to discuss a fascinating topic - The Culture of Cool and all that can be defined as such (or, at least, as much as we can get to).  From Icons of Cool, Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Robert Mitchum through todays stars that are able to carry that mantle. We talk imagery in film,...

This week Ibrahim & I get back to our discussion of the portrayals of Native Americans in Cinema. Spanning the Silent Film Era and the John Ford Legacy of "The Red Savage" into the re-evaluation of Native Cultures beginning with Arthur Penn's 1979 Dustin Hoffman classic, Little Big Man , and into the 1990's resurgence with Kevin Costner's Academy Award Winning Revisionist Western, Dances With Wolv...

Trying something a bit different with the podcast . . . this second episode of the week, Ibrahim & I sit down in The Fortress of Ultimate Darkness to answer a few questions about Cinema.  A little over twenty minutes of one guy asking another guy questions.  Take a listen and let us know what you think.  As always, Thanks for the Love & Support!

Going back to a favorite . . . a flick that that set off the Independent Movement of the 1990's, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994). This week Ibrahim & I talk about this groundbreaking movie and what it has meant to both Cinema and the Culture. There's not much else to write so just take a listen. Twenty-four years is a long time to spend thinking about a film. With that in mind I think we'v...

We're getting a bit personal on this week's episode of WatchThis w/RickRamos, as Ibrahim & I talk about a particularly important topic in our lives. In 1992 I stumbled on Michael Apted's Incident at Oglala - a film chronicling the late 70's persecution of The American Indian Movement and the railroading of Leonard Peltier in the deaths of two F.B.I. agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dako...

On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I sit down in The Fortress of Ultimate Darkness to talk Gun Control. No doubt a difficult subject, we take a look at a few documentaries that examine this divisive issue. We look at Emil Chiaberi's 2010 documentary Murder By Proxy: How America Went Postal (AKA Going Postal ). A heartfelt and thought-provoking examination of workplace viole...

On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I sit down to talk one of my favorite films, Clint Eastwood's 1992 Best Picture winning masterpiece, Unforgiven . Yeah, I've talked about this film in the past, but it's an entirely different thing when you sit down to discuss the same film with someone whom you respect and whose opinion you value. So this week we find ourselves sitting in...

On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I tackle one of the great all-time musical comparisons. This week we look at the lives of The (So-Named) King of Rock 'N Roll, Elvis Aaron Presley and The (Equally Ridiculously Named) King of Pop, Michael Joseph Jackson.  When Ibrahim & I started thinking about the lives of these two incredible artists it became obvious that we would have...

On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I take a look at The Game . . . specifically The Hustling Game of The American Pimp.  For this we take a look at Jerry Schatzberg's Street Smart , featuring Christopher Reeve and phenomenal performances by Kathy Baker and (in one of his last villainous roles) Morgan Freeman as Leo "Fast Black" Smalls. In order to do this subject right we h...

Ibrahim & I have come to the end of our journey to The Crossroads. On this week's episode of WatchThis w/RickRamos we wrap up our discussion of this great American Music. We discuss the music's growth and transformation from a rural Delta sound to an industrial Chicago worldwide force. We focus on the change in the music, but we also look at individual artists including Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wo...

This week on WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I continue our walk through the woods.  Starting with Robert Johnson we take a look at the musical construction of The Blues including the lyrical pattern of the music as well as the arrangements that would form and dictate the future of Rock & Roll, Soul, Funk, and most popular music. We continue with our understanding and passion for this great Ameri...

It doesn't get a whole hell of a lot more personal than this . . . On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Rick and Ibrahim sit down in The Fortress of Ultimate Darkness to discuss The Greatest Music this country has ever produced (that's an opinion, but it happens to be the truth). Take a listen as we go down the rabbit hole of one of our greatest passions.  We discuss the origins of The...

2017 is gone, buried, and it's time to move on, but before we do that we gotta take a few minutes (a little over 108 minutes to be exact) to discuss the films of 2017. On this episode of WatchThis w/RickRamos, Ramos goes it alone to discuss eighteen exceptional films he saw in theaters this past year.  Of course you're going to hear about Coco , Gilbert , Three Billboards Outside of Ebbings , Miss...

The train keeps rolling down the track as Ibrahim & I continue our examination of The Devil in Cinema.  After examining the Religious Devil, The Anti-Christ, and the Occult, we are ending this series on a more whimsical note by looking at The Devil of Mythology & Folklore.  The Devil as a Trickster, Scratch, as The Deal-Maker for One's Soul. With that in mind sit back and listen to us as we take a...

On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I are tackling one of greatest series in film history, George Lucas' Star Wars . We're going deep as we discuss the original series, the prequels, the new sequels, as well as the cult surrounding the series and attempt to understand the continuing popularity and importance of these films over forty years after A New Hope 's initial premier...

This week Ibrahim & I dive right back into our examination of Lucifer himself . . . Beelzebub, The Prince of Darkness, The Anti-Christ.  We start this look at The Evil One by examining Richard Donner's 1976  Horror-Thriller, The Omen , which would quickly become a series with Damien: The Omen Part II (1978), and the concluding film in the series Omen III: The Final Conflict  (1981). Not the best f...

It's crybaby week on this episode of WatchThis W/Rick Ramos as Ibrahim & I sit down in The Temple of Ultimate Darkness to discuss Disney/Pixar's newest masterpiece, Coco .  It's a pleasure to sit down and talk a film that strives for and achieves so much.  We discuss the the film's personal importance to the both of us, as well as the cultural significance of Dia de Muertos (Mexico's Day of the De...

On this weeks episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I continue our dance with The Devil profiling The Occult and the tragic, controversial, and fascinating life and career of Polish filmmaker and Fugitive of American Justice, Oscar-winner Roman Polanski (he drugged and raped a 13 year old girl, in case you forgot). With this episode (recorded a few days after the death of Charles Manson) Ibr...

On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I begin an examination into the world of The Devil. This first episode (in a proposed series of five) will look into the historical and religious role of The Devil in our world. Ibrahim & I begin with William Friedkin's 1973 Classic T he Exorcist featuring Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Jason Miller, and - the great - Max Von Sydow.  We follo...

We're hitting episode #150 and what better way to do that then with a little bit of introspection? So with the jumping off point of Neil Berkeley's new documentary profiling the life of comedian Gilbert Gottfried, Gilbert is a fascinating look at the life of the aforementioned comic who has spent the last forty years as some kind of strange curiosity in the world of stand-up comedy. A "comics' com...

On this week's episode of WatchThis w/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I sit down in The Fortress of Ultimate Darkness to talk the ever-evolving Harvey Weinstein controversy.  With an ever increasing number of accusers, as well as additional controversies involving Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman, Ibrahim & I are eager to put Hollywood under the microscope.  For this episode we go back almost a hundred years...

On this week's episode of WatchThis w/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I sit down in The Fortress of Ultimate Darkness to discuss Horror in Cinema, and specifically a True Master of the Grenre, John Carpenter and his early Masterpiece, Halloween .  With an exceptional debut performance from Jamie Lee Curtis, and beautiful slumming by the great English actor Donald Pleasance, John Carpenter's Halloween remains...